8 Natural and Effective Ways to Suppress the Stress Hormone Cortisol

Learning how to lower cortisol is not as hard as you may think… with a few simple tweaks, you can lower cortisol dramatically. But before I get into the list of how to lower cortisol, let’s learn a little more about cortisol and why you would want to lower it in the first place…

Cortisol is the principal stress hormone of the human body, and it gets a lot of attention in the fitness world.

Cortisol and testosterone are somewhat opposite sides of the coin… Cortisol is almost like an “enemy” when you’re interested in keeping your testosterone levels high.

Hence, why everyone’s telling you to reduce cortisol levels and keep them as low as possible. A statement which is partly true, but we also have to remember that cortisol is not completely useless.

It’s also the hormone that wakes you up in the morning, it’s deeply involved in the muscle glycocen storage/release process, and without cortisol, humans would still be crawling instead of walking.

So a certain baseline is needed for some of the most basic functions of the human body, and in that manner, cortisol is not that bad, and your body is pretty good at protecting itself from the negative effects when the levels stay within a reasonable range.

…However, when cortisol is too high, there simply isn’t enough of the enzyme 11ßHSD-1 to counteract the stress hormone, and as a result a lion’s share of your freshly produced testosterone molecules will be destroyed before they even leave the sack. Not only that, but testosterone and cortisol are both made from pregnenolone (which the body synthesizes from cholesterol), when cortisol is elevated, it basically “robs” the raw building material of T into making a stress hormone, rather than male sex hormone.

Hence why I have made you this list of 8 ways on how to lower cortisol levels naturally:

Thirdly, if you’re under a lot of stress then working out a the gym is probably not that good of an idea, at least if you take a look at this study which found out that already elevated stress induced cortisol skyrockets if you hit the gym.

Bottom line: If your goal is to maximize testosterone and reduce cortisol levels, then do intense and relatively short strength training sessions 2-4 times a week. For cardio, consider doing sprints and quick bouts of high interval intensity training over endurance training. If you’re under chronic stress, just walk. (check out the TestShock Program for a more detailed approach).

2. Don’t go Crazy with Caffeine

Drinking copious amounts of coffee ain’t going to help you if you’re suffering from high cortisol levels.

Even though caffeine ingestion pre-workout is scientifically proven to increase testosterone levels by 12-19%, it’s also a scientifically proven fact that caffeine directly stimulates the adrenal cortex to release cortisol into the bloodstream.

The researchers in this study found out that 800 mg’s of pre-workout caffeine was enough to increase cortisol by up to 44%.

Bottom line: Caffeine is OK, especially when taken pre-workout, that is if you already have balanced cortisol levels, but if you suffer from high cortisol and/or chronic stress, I wouldn’t recommend high doses of caffeine at all.

3. Laugh a lot and Live Longer with Lower Cortisol

The researchers in the Loma Linda University School of Medicine found out that when healthy human males watched a 60 minute humor-video, they were able to decrease cortisol levels significantly when compared to a control group that didn’t watch anything.

Good news for the comedy lovers.

Cortisol wasn’t the only hormone to fluctuate, as growth hormone levels also increased during “mirthful laughter”, but returned back to baseline when the subjects stopped laughing.

4. Vitamin C

Vitamin C is probably the best and most cost-effective supplement that you can take to balance high cortisol levels naturally.

Multiple studies have found out that vitamin C supplementation after exercise rapidly clears cortisol and enhances recovery (study, study, study).

The researchers in this study, found out that when vitamin C is administered before a stressful situation (in this study it was public speaking) it blunts the stress induced rise in cortisol.

Swimming in the cold water lowers heart rate for ~ 10%, during and an hour after (my personal experience). Cold water forces the body to calm down to prevent the heat loss. It is did by sweeping out cortisol and giving some serotonin, testosterone and even dopamine if you know what benefits you are getting from cold water action. So cold water is very effective forced way to lower cortisol. At the first time in cold water your cortisol may rise even to shock and panic reaction, but than it will rapidly go down. Doing cold shower or swimming (better) regularly, your cortisol will drop down just by seeing or reaching the water place. As body will start the long survival in the arctic state of nature.

Elimination of sugar and processed food also are my key to dramatic decrease of cortisol level. It’s did just by leaving the brain without the fuel of worrying. No sugar, no stress 🙂

Sleep is also very good method to lower cortisol (#1 in nature), but to sleep more, you should get to sleep earlier instead of staying in the bad longer in the morning. Hitting the sack until 10 pm is very important to get good deep sleep. As natural cortisol level is at it lowest at 9 to 11 pm.

Zkazama

800mg caffeine is like…13 shots of espresso – I think anyone would freak the fuck out ;D awesome article though, great site!